


iiiilllfii 

TO FIGHT THEM 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



FIRST BATTLES. 



f irst Battles 



AND HO W TO FIGHT THEM. 



c&ome f rientilp <£t)at£ toxty Soung ft^en. 



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FREDERICK A. ATKINS, 

AUTHOR OF " MORAL MUSCLE. AND HOW TO USE IT. 



" We are like soldiers in a vast, widely-extended battlefield (wrapped 
in obscurity) of which we know not the phases, of which we seem utterly 
powerless to control the issues; but we are responsible for our own part — 
whatever goes on elsewhere, let us not fail in that. The changes of the 
world, which men think they are bringing about, are in the hands of 
God. With Him, when we have done our duty, let us leave them." — 
Dean Church. 

c O?YRIG* r 




DEC 21 1 



Fleming H. Revell Company, 

NEW YORK: i CHICAGO: 

30 Union Square: East. | 148 and 150 Madison Street. 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature. 




W 



^\\ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

All Rights Reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

I. Money and Morals 5 

II. What Is a Gentleman ? 22 

III. How to be Insignificant 39 

IV. The Philosophy of Pleasure 53 

V. Christ and Commerce . . . 65 

VI. About Holidays , 77 

VII. Shams 85 

VIII. The Lost Christ 102 



INTRODUCTION. 



It falls to the lot of most persons to find life a 
conflict: to some it is a protracted and arduous 
campaign. This is only to say that, if we would 
come successfully through it, we must assume the 
attitude of soldiers, and be well accoutred for the 
fight. Much as there is in military life which we 
cannot but deplore, there is no illustration more 
frequently employed in Scripture to set forth the 
duties and the character of a Christian; and, how- 
ever much we may be out of sympathy with the 
profession, and lament the need for it, it cannot be 
denied that most of the personal qualities that 
make a good soldier are just those which go to 
constitute an exemplary Christian. 

A man may be soldierly, no doubt, without pos- 
sessing even a semblance of piety; but, all other 
things being equal, the more soldierly he is, the 
higher will be the type of his religion. If godly- 
men in the army are rare, they are generally ex- 
ceptionally good ! they have the courage of their 
convictions, and are decidedly aggressive in their 
piety. Particularly valuable are the qualities 
referred to in the beginning of life, when tempta- 
tions are most numerous and powerful. When St. 



INTR OB UC TION. 



Paul exhorted his young friend Timothy to be "a 
good soldier," he gave advice which all young men 
would do well to lay to heart; and never, perhaps, 
was it more needful than in an age like this,when 
the prevalence of luxury and the appetite for pleas- 
ure are so apt to take all the grit and manliness 
out of the rising youth of our land. Just as many 
a raw recruit has joined his country's service, 
tempted by the seemingly gay and easy life of a 
soldier, but has found, when called to active duty 
in the field, that the discipline was very different 
from what he expected, so it is with thousands of 
young men in their setting out on life; what 
promised to be almost a holidav proving a stiff 
conflict, and demanding a "hardness" they had 
not calculated upon. The first battles are there- 
fore the most trying and crucial. 

It is well that this should be understood and 
prepared for. Many a young man makes a moral 
collapse, because he did not know of the dangers 
he had to face, the enemies he had to conquer, and 
the special qualities he needed to possess ; whereas, 
had he been duly warned and counselled, he might 
have come through victorious. Those are the best 
friends of youth who faithfully point out the per- 
ils that lie before them, and urge preparation for 
the fight. No living man better understands how 
to do this than the author of First Battles, and 
How to Fight Them. I think it was John Bright 



INTRODUCTION. iii 

who happily remarked some years ago, when 
speaking of a popular nobleman, Lord Roseberry, 
that he had the face of a boy and the tongue of a 
sage ; and it would be no extravagance to say of 
our author that his writings combine the vivacity 
of youth with the mellow wisdom of maturity. 
He is already favorably known by his little book, 
Moral Muscle, and How to Use It, and has se- 
cured a wide influence among the rising gener- 
ation by his able editorship of The Young Man. 
First Battles is an admirable successor to Moral 
Muscle, the title in both cases being singularly 
felicitous. 

One can scarcely fail to be struck with the un- 
usual number of books that have been published 
within the last few years, specially addressed to 
young men. The press has clearly been alive to 
the growing need for this class .of literature. At 
no period of the world, probably, have the claims 
of young men been so fully recognized, or so much 
attention been bestowed upon the temptations, 
difficulties and dangers that specially beset them. 
This is a hopeful feature of the age; and all the 
more so because, on the whole, the tone of these 
endeavors is bracing and invigorating in its char- 
acter. It is no longer assumed that a young man of 
undoubted piety must be effeminate in his bearing, 
morbid and whimsical in his principles, and hostile 
to every species of physical culture and recreation. 



IX TR OD I 'C TIOX. 



On the other hand, thank God, it is coming to 

be generally recognized that Christianity aims at 

saving- the whole man, "bodv, soul, and spirit;'' 

and that genuine religion develops and ennobles 

all the powers. The author of First Battles is a 

recognized apostle of this doctrine. He is the 

sworn enemy of cant. He believes that godliness 

and manliness are close akin. He goes in for a 

religion that is bright and brotherlv, courteous 
© © 

and unselfish, and whose invariable tendency is to 
elevate and refine, and to turn out true gentlemen. 
Well does he say, " One of the most remarkable 
characteristics of gentlemanliness lies in the fact 
that it is not so verv far removed from womanli- 
ness. It has a sacred modesty, a tender regard 
and respect for weakness and loneliness and infer- 
iority, a deep and genuine reverence for the inno- 
cence and purity of womanhood. But you say, 
How about manliness? I reply by asking another 
qr.estion, Do you know what manliness means? 
It means virtue. When Garfield said. * I shall try 
and become a man ; if I do not succeed in that. I 
shall be good for nothing,' he did not mean that 
his ambition was to be merelv big and boisterous 
and robust — he desired to become gentle and strong 
and good." 

The object of this little book, of course, is not 
to teach theoloow, but there is not a sentence in 
it that is not in harmony with healthy evangelical 



INTR OB UC T10N. 



teaching. The writer is not forgetful of the Cross, 
with its wondrous mystery and its matchless 
power; but his special aim is to present to young 
men the living Christ, as at once the brightest 
example and the truest Friend. Leaving Chris- 
tian doctrine to be handled by others, he shows 
what Christian practice is; and to all who, under 
cover of religion, allow in themselves anything 
that is false or cowardly or mean, he administers 
vigorous and merited castigation. The perusal of 
these pages cannot but be useful to all who are 
just entering on life's first battles; here they will 
find the wise counsels and cheering words they 
need. For young men who are leaving school 
and home, and going forth to push their own way 
in the world, a more suitable gift could hardly be 
selected than First Battles, and How to Fight 
Them. 

J. Thain Davidson. 



First Battles, 



AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM. 



/HONEY AND /MORALS. 

'■' When a man dies, they ivho survive him ask ■what 
property he has left behind him. The angel ivho 
bends over the dying man asks zvhat good deeds he 
has sent before him." — The Koran. 

" 77 is physically impossible for a xvell- educated, intellec- 
tual, or brave ma7i to make money the chief object of 
his thoughts." — Ruskin. 

It seems a strange combination ! Is 
there any connection between money and 
morals ? If there is it is the connection 
which exists between the neck of the 
criminal and the axe of the executioner — 
a connection that is, as a rule, hopelessly 
and absolutely fatal. The reckless greed 
of gain has driven more men away from 
Jesus Christ than any other passion. 
" Very sorrowful . . . for he was 



FIRST BA TTLES. 



very rich." That is a miniature portrait 
of a young man who once came to Christ, 
and it tells the story of many a prosperous 
but dissatisfied man to-day. Have you 
ever known any man who received the 
slightest benefit of a high and noble kind 
from money ? Has it ever made a man 
good ? Has it ever increased his gener- 
osity, broadened his sympathies, or roused 
in him a longing after righteousness? 
Never ! It adds to your creature com- 
forts, ministers to your merely sensuous 
enjoyment; if you possess brains it en- 
ables you to encourage art and science, 
and if you are a practical Christian it 
places in your hand the wherewithal to 
succor the suffering and relieve the dis- 
tressed. But in itself money has never 
made any man happy or healthy or holy. 
On the contrary, it has dimmed the love, 
wrecked the peace, and spoilt the charac- 
ters of countless thousands. One of the 
ablest preachers of the day, speaking re- 



MONEY AND MORALS. 



cently, said that " nothing but the mercy 
of God prevented money from doing harm 
wherever it went." 

Don't you think it is a very impressive 
and significant fact that the most heart- 
less and contemptible act of treachery 
ever committed — an act which has excited 
the horror and disgust of all the ages — 
should have been due to the selfish desire 
of a miserable and covetous man to se- 
cure thirty pieces of silver? Judas Iscar- 
iot was not a degraded profligate — he was 
a disciple, with a character, no doubt, of 
the utmost decency and respectability. 
He may have been alluded to, for all we 
know, as a shrewd, practical, hard-headed 
man of business. But it was that little 
bag of money which led to his sin, his 
suicide, and his destruction. His love of 
gain was greater than his love for his 
Lord. 

And this is just where the danger ex- 
ists. Young men will exclaim, " Surely 



FIRST BATTLES. 



it is not wrong to wish to make money?" 
Certainly not, if you are careful that when 
you have made the money it does not mar 
you. Riches are like a rose in a man's 
hand; if he holds it gently it will preserve 
its beauty of shape and fragrance of smell, 
but if he handles it tightly he will crush 
and destroy it. Make your pile of money 
if you will — work on with earnestness, in- 
dustry, and persistence, and may large 
success attend all your endeavors. But 
bear with this brotherly warning. Hold 
the riches lightly — let them flow out free- 
ly in wise benevolence, use them liberally 
for the highest ends, and you will have 
done well. But hug your wealth, set your 
heart on it, let the miserly and covetous 
spirit paralyze your very soul, and life 
will become a hideous nightmare, a foul 
sepulchre, a long spell of hopeless servi- 
tude. 

Do you doubt this? Then listen to the 
testimony of a man who made money 



MONEY AND MORALS. 



with great rapidity and got rid of it with 
equal celerity. " I have never seen the 
use of hoarding money," said George 
Moore; "we may gather riches, but can 
never know who is to spend them. God 
preserve me against the sin of covetous- 
ness. It is a curse that eats out the heart 
and dries up the soul of a man." Have we 
not all seen the man who is rich and 
wretched? He has given up his life to 
the pursuit of wealth, and in so doing the 
man has been utterly lost in the machine. 
When his bank-book bulges out with un- 
told riches, he finds that it is impossible 
to enjoy them. He has cultivated no 
lofty tastes, formed no healthy habits, in- 
dulged in no Christly beneficence, and so 
the money is nothing but an intolerable 
burden, and all he can do is to go on rak- 
ing, and reckoning, and grinding, and 
fighting for gold that he does not want, 
and which he does not know how to use 
when it is acquired. 



io FIRST BATTLES. 

Beware of this reckless and ruinous 
ambition for wealth. Remember the 
words of Goethe — 

Men may bear much from harsh severity, 
But not a long run of unmixed prosperity! 

Riches are like thorns — touch them ten- 
derly and lightly and they are harmless ; 
rest on them and they will cut and rend and 
pierce you. Therefore do not allow T your 
mind to be muddled and your life to be un- 
settled by a vain desire for a big bank bal- 
ance. "A restlessness in men's minds," 
says Sir William Temple, " to be some- 
thing they are not, and to have something 
they have not, is the root of all immoral- 
ity." That is profoundly and terribly true. 
We forget that a good farthing is better 
than a bad sovereign, and that it is far 
more manly to do the best we can with 
our own feathers than to strut in bor- 
rowed plumes. Why should we be so 
anxious for the gilded shams and spark- 
ling: mockeries of the world ? Is a man's 



MONE Y A ND MORA LS. i 1 

heart more restful because his head is 
adorned with a coronet ? Does his life 
gain in buoyancy because he keeps more 
horses than he can ride ? What nonsense 
it all is ! Instead of spoiling your life by 
any mad ambition for personal aggrandize- 
ment, do the present duty manfully and 
well. After all that is the surest road to 
prosperity. And if you have sufficient 
grit in you to stand the overwhelming 
temptations of riches, they may be be- 
stowed on you one of these days, and then 
you will wonder how you could ever have 
wasted a single moment in longing for so 
fleeting and superficial a possession. But 
never allow the devil to make you morbidly 
discontented with your environment. If 
he once does that, he can work your ruin 
without much further trouble. "You 
were meant," he will say, " for something 
better than this monotonous toil ; get 
gold and plenty of it, put on fine airs, 
and help to swell the mob of fashionable 



12 FIRST BATTLES. 

pleasure-seekers ; live for sensual de- 
lights, smother your conscience with 
bank-notes, and laugh at the puritanical 
ravings of modern faddists and philan- 
thropic cranks." The man who is 
caught by this temptation seldom escapes. 
He gambles and plunges furiously, and 
tries to get rich by rapid and unrighteous 
means. He becomes selfish and cynical 
and dishonest, winks at falsehood, laughs 
at license, is unscrupulous in his passion for 
wealth and position, and, almost without 
knowing it, the poor fellow has sunk into 
the uttermost depths of cowardice and 
vice. There is, however, an ambition 
which is noble and commendable, but it 
is ruled bv love, guarded bv honesty, and 
sanctified by a generous goodwill towards 
men. The best ambition is the ambition 
to be good and brave and true. Let us 
not be at the beck and call of every pass- 
ing fancy. Let us earnestly and cour- 
ageously perform the task intrusted to us, 



MONE Y AND MORA LS. 13 

however lowly it may be, and however 
inadequate its reward. To us it may 
seem the dreariest drudgery, but when 
we do it well and cheerfully for Christ's 
sake, even drudgery becomes divine. 

Many years ago Charles Kingsley, as 
" Parson Lot," inaugurated a valiant 
crusade against the mammon worship of 
his day. Of course he met with the 
bitter and virulent hostility of all who 
loved money more than justice and 
brotherly love. But he earned an undy- 
ing reputation as the friend and champion 
of humanity. We want another " Parson 
Lot " in these days to teach us that money 
is not a thing to be played with at the 
will of its possessor. Nothing will help so 
much to solve certain modern problems as 
the dissemination of Bible teaching regard- 
ing money. The idea of the Bible is dis- 
tinctly that of stewardship. The money 
you put away in the bank is, in a limited 
and mechanical sense, your own property. 



i 4 FIRST BA TTLES. 

But looked at from the higher and more 
Christian standpoint, it is not yours at all. 
It is given to you as a trust, not as a pos- 
session. If that great and unassailable 
principle could prevail in the minds and 
hearts of men, gambling would be anni- 
hilated once and for all. Because the old 
stock argument in favor of betting — it 
generally comes from flabby, unhealthy 
young men of dissipated life and restricted 
intellect — is this : " Oh, but you know, 
old fellow, a man can do as he likes with 
his own money." Certainly; I grant that 
entirely. But the fact is that the money 
is not yours. God has placed it in your 
hands for fifty or sixty years, and there 
will come a day of reckoning when He 
will want to know what good you have 
accomplished, what poverty you have 
relieved and what evil you have destroyed 
by the powerful and influential gift which 
He intrusted in your keeping. One 
hardly likes to think what the result will 



MONE Y AND MORALS. 1 5 

be when you have to confess that you 
tossed the gold to the devil — that you 
flung it away at poker or that you handed 
it to some rascally poolseller. 

It is impossible to write of money and 
morals without protesting against the 
biggest curse of modern times. Nothing 
is more calculated to turn the smiling 
optimist into a despairing pessimist than 
the incalculable ruin which is being 
wrought every day by betting and gam- 
bling. This is undoubtedly the most seri- 
ous and difficult problem with which 
Christian reformers have to grapple. So 
far we have scarcely touched it. There 
have been long and wordy discussions, a 
great deal of purposeless chatter has been 
poured forth in speeches and leading arti- 
cles, and still we seem to make no prog- 
ress — we are engaged in the useless occu- 
pation of beating the air. Convocation 
will not untie the knot; the newspaper is 
impotent simply because it is implicated ; 



1 6 FIRST BATTLES. 

and Christian men are too apt to trust to 
silvery rhetoric rather than to stringent 
reform. 

The fact is, that nothing very helpful 
will be done until we clear our minds of 
cant. The practical common-sense of 
solemn dignitaries who fervently de- 
nounce betting and then sit down to play 
whist for dime points is somewhat difficult 
to detect. The wisdom of arresting one 
gambler and asking another to open a 
church bazaar is scarcely perceptible to 
the man in the street. Betting is fashion- 
able ; the gambler is a respected, or at 
least a tolerated, individual, and even the 
great mass of Christian men and women 
have not yet had their eyes opened to 
the awful havoc caused by this passion- 
ate lust for gain. When they see how it 
robs men of character, health, and friends ; 
when they realize that horse-racing has 
more votaries than any religion ; then, 
I believe, they will rise up and de- 



MONE Y AND MORA LS. 1 7 

nounce it fearlessly. The literature of 
the turf is enormous in extent and world- 
wide in influence. It provides a risky 
excitement for the rich and a hideous 
fever for the poor. It shows men how 
to get hold of their neighbors' property 
without giving any honest equivalent, 
which means, in plain English, that it 
makes men thieves. 

It is simply alarming to contemplate 
the extent to which the deadly contagion 
is spreading through the country. Boys 
bet; young men neglect the beauties of 
literature for the " tips " , of sporting 
papers ; and scarcely an office is without 
its sweep-stake on the Derby or the boat- 
race. This vice controls its victims with 
a fascination which is absolutely devilish, 
and the unutterable ruin which it inevi- 
tably works is almost heartbreaking. 
I therefore call upon every earnest, manly, 
Christian fellow to do all he can to stamp 
out this degrading and unchivalrous 



1 8 FIRST BATTLES. 

habit. For this two reasons are suffi- 
cient : — (i) It must be wrong to accept 
money for which you have given nothing 
in return ; and (2) it is the very essence 
of selfishness to use, as Kingsley says, 
" what you fancy your superior knowl- 
edge of a horse's merits to your neigh- 
bor's harm." " Work faithfully," says 
Mr. Ruskin, " and you will put yourself 
in possession of a glorious and enlarging 
happiness ; not such as can be won by 
the speed of a horse or marred by the 
obliquity of a ball." 

All thoughtful and observant men must 
admit that materialism is the dominant 
peril of our age. As young men, there- 
fore, we must be on our guard. Wealth 
is a useful servant when guarded by char- 
ity and wisdom, but it is a tyrannical mas- 
ter, and holds its subjects in galling and 
miserable servitude. Christ never thought 
much of money. The most hopeless and 
melancholy characters He ever drew 



MONE Y AND MORA LS. 1 9 

were rich men. His Gospel teaches us 
that character is more than circumstances 
— a clean heart better than a big check- 
book. Bacon has called riches "the bag- 
gage of virtue." "As baggage is to an 
army," he says, "so is riches to virtue; it 
cannot be spared or left behind, but it 
hindereth the march. Of great riches 
there is no real use, except it be in the 
distribution; the rest is but conceit." I 
have heard of a very wealthy merchant, 
who, attending church one night, was 
greatly impressed by the words of Christ, 
" A rich man shall hardly enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." They lingered in 
his memory, and for years his rest was 
broken and his peace disturbed by this 
discomforting thought, "Shall hardly 
enterP Let us frankly confess then that 
if we have given our hearts over to mam- 
mon worship, we have, to say the least of 
it, made a tremendous mistake. The 
millionaire is not always the successful 



20 FIRST BA TTLES. 

man. The richest merchant in the city 
may in reality be poorer than his meanest 
servant. For all the money on earth 
cannot compensate for a starved soul, a 
narrow mind, a limited outlook, and a life 
that confers no blessing on humanity. 
"Chinese" Gordon was comparatively 
poor, but he achieved what was better 
than all the fortunes of all the world's 
millionaires put together — a Christ-like 
character and a noble life-work. Who 
would not infinitely prefer to be Gordon 
with empty pockets than the richest gam- 
bler in the land? 

Over the triple doorways of the cathe- 
dral of Milan there are three inscriptions 
spanning the splendid arches. Over one 
is carved a wreath of roses with the 
legend, "All that which pleases is but for 
a moment." Over the other is sculptured 
a cross accompanied by the words, "All 
that which troubles is but for a moment." 
But on the great central entrance to the 



MONE V AND MORALS. 2 1 

main aisle is the inscription, "That only 
is important which is eternal." The les- 
son is obvious. It teaches us that morals 
are of more account than money, and 
that if we are wise we shall care less and 
less for the passing pageants of the hour, 
for the gratification of our frivolous fan- 
cies, and for the attainment of our worldly 
ambitions. We shall live for the heav- 
enly, for the eternal, for the service of the 
strong and tender Christ, whose "well 
done " is more to be desired than all the 
plaudits of the universe. 



II. 

WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? 

And thus he bore without abuse 

The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 

And soiled tvith all ignoble use. 

— Tennyson. 

Never imagine that the swaggering brag- 
gart can move the world — he is as feeble 
as he is loud. Jesus Christ was the strong- 
est man who ever lived — and the gentlest. 
He would not have hurt the feelings of a 
child, and yet He could conquer hell. 
"He opened His mouth and taught them, 
saying, Blessed . . ." That was the 
keynote of His life. He was always 
blessing somebody — healing the sick, 
comforting the sad, cheering the weary, 
raising the dead; His life was one long 
series of kindly, brotherly actions. And 
yet, how He could burn with moral indig- 
nation! The same Christ who was ten- 

(22) 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 23 

der and gentle and forgiving to the sinners 
who were tired of the dreary heartache 
of their useless lives, and longed to be 
better and do better, could denounce the 
hypocrites of His day as " a generation of 
vipers." We must rid ourselves of the 
popular delusion that tenderness denotes 
weakness. It doesn't. Bullies are weak 
— gentlemen are strong. The braggart is 
impotent; the empty noise of his braying 
is quickly exhausted, and then he is used 
up and has nothing to go on with. The 
man who endures and overcomes is the 
man who follows Christ in His sweet 
reasonableness of temper and thought and 
action. 

What is a gentleman? First of all, let 
me tell you what he is not. He is not 
that well-known youth, with vacant, lamb- 
like expression, gorgeous necktie of many 
colors, immense cuffs, large trousers, tiny 
shoes, and a buttonhole of huge dimen- 
sions. He is not the kind of young man 



24 FIRST BA TTLES. 



whom Charlotte Bronte once described 
as "pretty-looking and pretty-behaved, ap- 
parently constructed without a backbone, 
by which I don't allude to his corporal 
spine, which is all right enough, but to 
his character." We all know this nerve- 
less automaton. He is destitute of one 
throbbing impulse or lofty ideal. King- 
doms might crash, empires might totter 
and fall — he soars above such trifles, and 
views them with stately unconcern. The 
only matters which trouble him are the 
straightness of his necktie, the smoothness 
of his hair, and the whiteness of his cuffs. 
One day somebody suggests that lawn 
tennis is a nice, gentle game, and this 
amiable youth becomes quite interested. 
Of course he "hasn't an idea how to 
play," but he knocks the balls about for a 
quarter of an hour, and is ill with exhaus- 
tion for a week afterwards. In company 
he is silent, hoping, perhaps, that his rav- 
ishing beauty may make up for his help- 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 2$ 

less taciturnity. He is too modest to sing 
a song, too lazy to learn an instrument, 
too dignified to ride a bicycle, too stiff to 
run a race, too noble to stoop to the clam- 
or of debate or the jealousies of journ- 
alism, and much too prudent to venture 
on any more dogmatic assertion than 
"Nith day after the wain." The incon- 
venient question was asked one day con- 
cerning a man of this caliber, "What can 
he do?" Well, truth to tell, he can look 
ladylike, behave beautifully, curl his hair 
to perfection, and pose for a photograph 
— rare accomplishments, which, in a more 
advanced age, might perhaps win for him 
respect and admiration. Let us do him 
justice, however; he is vain but not vi- 
cious, puny but not prodigal, languid but 
never licentious, though certain cynics 
have suggested that he is mildly respecta- 
ble only because he lacks the pluck to be 
madly riotous. It is an old saying and a 
true one that " Fine feathers do not make 



26 FIRST BA TTLES. 

fine birds." A decorated donkey is a 
donkey still. The slaves of nineteenth 
century masherdom may be exquisitely 
beautiful, but they are not gentlemen in 
the noblest sense of the word. 

No ; ladylikeness of exterior and a sort 
of " got- up - regardless - of- expense " ap- 
pearance are not the outward and visible 
signs of gentlemanliness. Some of the 
roughest and most erratic men possess 
the truest hearts and the tenderest spirits. 
I shall always feel intensely grateful that 
the blind and blundering Peter was one 
of the disciples, for it shows that Jesus 
Christ can sympathize with men who are 
recklessly enthusiastic. Some of the most 
useful, genial, and delightful men I have 
ever met have been impetuous Peters — 
true and honest disciples, but afflicted 
with the unhappy knack of occasionally 
doing the right thing in the wrong way. 
They seem to possess every other virtue 
except caution and prudence. And yet 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 27 

what a gentleman this erratic kind of fel- 
low sometimes is ! How sunny his 
smile, how loving his heart, how honest 
his voice, how firm the grip of his hand, 
and, alas ! how unreliable his promises ! 
Write him a long and important letter, 
and insist in several postscripts on an 
immediate reply. You may, by means 
of unusually favorable circumstances or 
a wet day, receive an answer within a 
week ; but it is more likely that after 
many days he will be surprised by finding 
your letter in an odd corner, and write off 
an apologetic but almost illegible postcard. 
We all know the man, nimble-minded, 
keen-witted, and apparently reckless, al- 
ways eager to listen to a new story, al- 
ways ready with a good yarn in return. 
He has boundless energy, never-failing 
vivacity, and a heart that overflows with 
love. There is no game or recreation 
that he does not dabble in. He can ride 
any kind of cycle, he revels in cricket, 



28 FIRST BATTLES. 

and he can swim like a duck. But he 
flies from one to the other with the most 
delightful inconsistency, one day perspir- 
ing at lawn tennis, a week later rowing 
as if for dear life, and anon ready to enter 
into an ardent dispute with any man who 
dares to assert that gymnastics do not form 
the best exercise in the world. In one 
word, he is a rocket — he may go up, he 
may splutter and fall. If he does go up 
there is sure to be a brilliant display, for 
his ability is undeniable, and his career is 
only hindered from being a conspicuous 
success by his erratic and disorderly 
methods. But look at him and tell me 
if he is not a gentleman. See how he 
dries the falling tear ; observe how read- 
ily he bears the bitterest inconvenience 
in order to do a service for a man who is 
"down" ; notice how he stints himselt 
that he may help any prodigal who hap- 
pens to be "hard up" ; see how the tiny 
children love this great-hearted, merry, 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 29 

boyish fellow, climbing all over him, ca- 
ressing his rough face, and pulling his 
grizzly beard. Yes, this man knows 
something of the gentlemanly Carpenter 
of Nazareth, or he could not be so re- 
freshingly frank, so transparently sincere, 
so sublimely unselfish. After all, I would 
rather have the rugged warmth of a fire- 
work than the prim and pompous frigidity 
of an iceberg. 

But let us come to close quarters, and 
inquire into some of the indispensable 
characteristics of a gentleman. In the 
first place, he is brimming over with 
brotherliness. Not only is this the first 
indication of gentlemanliness — it is the 
very essence and heart of true Christian- 
ity. The Apostle John evidently thought 
so, for he said, in his frank, straightfor- 
ward way, that "If a man say, I love 
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar "; 
and again, " Let us love one another, for 
love is of God ; and every one that loveth 



3 o FIRST BATTLES. 

is born of God and knoweth God "; and 
then, in a burst of indignation, he de- 
clares that the man who hates his brother 
is a murderer. I firmly believe that the 
crowning necessity of the Church to-day is 
not an austere and unbending Puritanism, 
but a large-hearted, cheerful spirit of 
Christian brotherliness. While we have 
been wasting our strength in drawing up 
resolutions, arranging our formulas, and 
throttling enthusiasm with red tape, the 
devil has been winning hosts of adherents 
by means of cheerful resorts, bright music, 
and good fellowship. The shallow critic 
cannot save the world — even the skillful 
theologian cannot do it. What we want 
is sympathy. There are men who have 
fallen in the tragedy of life, and, bleeding 
and forlorn, they need the hearty hand- 
grasp, the friendly help of brotherly men. 
We must cast away our supercilious self- 
conceit and our chilling cynicism. We 
must get hold of those who have been over- 



WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? 31 

come of evil, and cheer them with words 
of hope, and encourage them to begin a 
better life. We must treat with infinite 
tenderness bewildered, misguided, un- 
happy souls who have blundered and 
fallen, and are gradually sinking into 
despair. Such men will be repulsed by a 
tract, they will resent an arrogant inquisi- 
tion into their intellectual eccentricities. 
But we may love them to Christ. We may 
gently succor them from their evil selves 
and show them the noble character, 
the mysterious self-sacrifice, and the 
resistless power of Him who was the 
Friend and Savior of thieves and harlots. 
All brotherliness must begin at the Cross. 
Inspired by the supreme revelation of the 
Father's love, we shall lose our unworthy 
pride, our reckless ambition, and our false 
notions of respectability, and learn the first 
lesson of gentlemanliness, which is to love 
our brother even as Christ has loved us. 
Then you will always notice that a gen- 



3 2 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

tleman possesses a dexterous and most de- 
lightful tact. I think it was Dr. Culross 
who, at a gathering of young men, gave 
an admirable example of this quality. 
He said that at a certain breakfast a guest 
upset a cup, and its contents soiled 
the cloth. A neighbor quietly placed a 
vase of flowers over the stain, and thus 
hid the blot with beauty. Another story 
occurs to me about General Grant, who 
avoided taking Lee's presentation sword 
at the capitulation without either " clumsy 
bluntness or caddish showiness," simply 
by adding this to the terms, " All officers 
to retain their side-arms." A third ex- 
ample is given by Mr. R. L. Stevenson, 
who reminds us of how Wellington, 
meeting Marmont years after Salamanca, 
was asked by the agreeable marshal his 
opinion of the battle. "I early per- 
ceived," was his gentle reply, u that your 
excellency had been wounded." I men- 
tion these incidents to explain what I 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 33 

mean by a " dexterous tact" — a considera- 
tion for the feelings of others, a desire to 
put people at their ease, and to make the 
best of a trying situation. After all, this 
is summed up in the Christian law of 
bearing one another's burdens, and of 
doing to others as we would others should 
do to us. 

But if we imitate the gentlemanliness 
of Jesus we shall go further, we shall look 
for the good in men, we shall try to ig- 
nore their weaknesses, and our judgments 
will be very kind. We must remember 
that no man is utterly and irretrievably 
bad. We all have a good side to our char- 
acter — a Dr. Jekyll, who is generous and 
charitable and upright. And alas! what 
life is not embittered and hampered by a 
ghostly Mr. Hyde, black with iniquity, 
terrible with hatred, scorched with hell! 
Hercules, the strong man, had a robe 
sent to him poisoned with blood. He 
put it on, and as soon as it became warm 



34 FIRST BA TTLFS. 

the poison entered his flesh ; he could 
not tear it from him, and he died, strong 
man as he was. The evil spirit is part of 
us, it destroys our rest, it assails us at oui 
weakest points, and when we would do 
good there is the desperate and deadly 
temptation to be reckoned with, and 
sometimes we are swept along before the 
withering blast of our unrestrained pas- 
sions. Life is a mixed quantity. We 
are bad for a time, then we rise up and 
declare that we will be Christ's men. 
We pray with eager desire and intense 
earnestness, and immediately afterwards 
give both hands to the devil. One day 
we are cursed with hideous and soul- 
haunting thoughts, and the very next day 
blessed with all the calm of heaven's 
peace. Our life is a maze, a tangled 
mystery, a grim tragedy. The great les- 
son to be learnt from this duality of pur- 
pose is that no character is altogether 
bad. The worst part of a man's nature 



WHA T IS A GENTLEMAN? 35 

may have caught our attention, and we 
instantly condemn him as a most hopeless 
and degraded sinner. What blind injus- 
tice ! He may all the time be fighting a 
winning battle with a thousand tempta- 
tions of which we know nothing. So 
we must cultivate a gentlemanly kindness 
in our criticisms, knowing that we shall 
often experience the pain of defeat ere 
we know the glory of ultimate victory. 

Among other unmistakable indications 
of true gentlemanliness are chivalry and 
unselfishness. He is no gentleman, but 
the meanest and most contemptible of 
creatures, who is unclean in thought and 
unchaste in life. One of the most re- 
markable characteristics of gentlemanli- 
ness lies in the fact that it is not so very 
far removed from womanliness. It has a 
sacred modesty, a tender regard and re- 
spect for weakness and loneliness and in- 
feriority, a deep and genuine reverence 
for the innocence and purity of woman- 



36 FIRST BATTLES. 

hood. But, you say, how about manli- 
ness ? I reply by asking another ques- 
tion, Do you know what manliness 
means ? It signifies virtue. When 
Garfield said, " I shall try and become a 
man ; if I do not succeed in that I shall 
be good for nothing," he did not mean 
that his ambition was to be merely big 
and boisterous and robust, he desired to 
become gentle and strong and good. 
Vice is no mark of cleverness or manli- 
ness. It is a shameful, devilish thing that 
scars the soul, wounds the heart, rends 
the whole life asunder, and turns the fu- 
ture into darkness. 

There is one other mark of the highest 
Christian gentlemanliness — it absolutely 
prohibits sickening personalities in con- 
versation. "There are times," says Dr. 
John Hall, "when we are compelled to 
say, 'I do not think Bouncer is a true and 
honest man.' But where there is no 
need to express an opinion, let poor 



WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? 37 

Bouncer swagger away. Others will 
take his measure no doubt, and save you 
the trouble of analyzing him and instruct- 
ing them." The gentlemanly thing to do 
is to dwell as much as possible on the 
best side of human nature. Healthy 
men will not wish to dine at a dissecting 
table. Instead of retailing petty gossip 
about people, and criticising small mis- 
takes, and exaggerating trifling defects, 
rise higher, speak of nobler things, man- 
lier thoughts, loftier objects, and try and 
keep the atmosphere pure and fragrant 
with charity and brotherly love. Per- 
haps it has not occurred to you that to 
ridicule or slander an absent man is the 
most vulgar and cowardly thing you can 
do. The Apostle has told us that " the 
tongue is a fire," and we know it is so. 
Nothing stabs so deep as slanderous and 
bitter words. Avoid suspicion, resent- 
ment, subtle and base insinuations, and 
scorn to indulge in unwholesome gossip ; 



38 FIRST BA TTLES. 

for, as Cardinal Newman wisely said, the 
true gentleman " has no ears for slander, 
never takes an unfair advantage, and in- 
terprets everything for the best." 



III. 

HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 

Act well your fart, there all the honor lies. — Pope. 

" To be at work, to do things for the world, to turn the 
currents of the things about us at our will, to make 
our existence a positive element, even though it be no 
bigger than a grain of sand, in this great system 
where we live, — that is a new joy of which the idle 
man knows no more tha?i the mole knows of the 
sunshine, or the serpent of the eagle's triumphant 
fight into the upper air. The man who knows indeed 
what it is to act, to work, cries out, ' This, this alone is 
to live!" 1 " — Phillips Brooks. 

The world is full of insignicant peo- 
ple. They are born, they go to school, 
they work, they eat, they sleep, they 
talk — rather frivolously, they live — very 
aimlessly, and one day they die, and the 
world is not much the poorer because of 
their disappearance. A few men strug- 
gle to the front, rise beyond the humdrum 
level of the crowd, and make their voices 
heard above the common clamor. But 

(39) 



40 FIRST BATTLES. 

as for the rest, they are insignificant. 
Why? Because it is the easiest thing in 
the world. 

Probably the surest way to be insignifi- 
cant is to inherit wealth. It is generally 
the greatest possible curse for a man to 
begin life in opulence. It ties his hands, 
lowers his ambition, and narrows his sym- 
pathies. He is fettered by fashion, and 
bound tightly by the conventional preju- 
dices of society. He will not succeed in 
journalism, for he cannot bend his back 
to begin with the daily drudgery. He 
will hardly consent to soil his hands in 
trade ; and as for science and art, why 
should he endure the long toil and severe 
training of the student when he can oc- 
cupy the pleasurable position of the pa- 
tron ? Except in a few remarkable cases, 
the young man who enters on life's 
tragedy to the music of jingling gold 
plays an insignificant part, far from 
danger, and therefore far from honor. 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 41 

My brother, be extremely thankful if you 
are thrown entirely on your own re- 
sources. Many of the men who have 
won the highest success in commerce and 
science and art, many of the boldest re- 
formers, most brilliant writers, and most 
forceful orators, have been men who 
commenced life without a penny in their 
pockets. One of the best men I have 
ever known once thoughtlessly sneered 
at a young journalist because he lacked 
the supposed advantage of a college edu- 
cation. He did not know that the suc- 
cessful journalists in the city of London 
this day who can put B.A. after their 
names can be comfortably counted on the 
fingers of one hand. The smartestjour- 
nalist in that city to-day had no schooling 
after he reached twelve years of age, ex- 
cept what he gained by his own unaided 
efforts. It may seem the strangest para- 
dox, but it is nevertheless a simple unde- 
niable fact ; that poverty is often one of 



42 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

the greatest blessings a man can have in 
beginning his career. It nerves him for 
the battle, it hinders self-indulgence, and 
it is a sure preventive of laziness. 

Another certain method of acquiring 
insignificance is a love of ease. "Any- 
thing for a quiet life" is the motto which 
has ruined the prospects of thousands. 
The man who is content to exist — the 
man who says that work is an excellent 
thing, and he would rather enjoy a short 
spell of it, but he feels that " to work be- 
tween meals is not good for the diges- 
tion" — that man will always be miserably 
small and contemptibly insignificant. 
You have got to cli??ib the ladder of life — 
there is no elevator to take you up. There 
are prizes to be had, but you must win 
them — they will not drop into your hands. 
Do you wish to avoid insignificance and 
rise to some nobler height of work and 
character and attainment ? Then you 
must be ready not only to take opportu- 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 43 

nities, but to make them. You must be 
trenuous in effort, dogged in persever- 
ance, indomitable in courage, and cheer- 
ful and alert in mind. When Cromwell 
was asked to postpone an enterprise and 
"wait till the iron was hot," he bravely 
replied that he would make the iron hot 
by striking it. That is the dauntless 
spirit we want to-day — the spirit which 
laughs at difficulty, and is not to be 
turned aside from its ambition by all the 
amiable warnings of prudence or timidity. 
There is one hymn which is sometimes 
sung at revival meetings — we do not 
hear it so often now. It begins — 

Oh, to be nothing, nothing. 

Now if that is your ambition, you can 
easily gratify it. Nothingness is soon 
achieved. But surely no young man with 
a healthy mind and a Christ-like spirit 
will be deceived by this hideous mockery 



44 FIRST BATTLES. 

and caricature of true humility. To want 
to be nothing is an insult to the God who 
made you. Was it worth while bringing 
you into the world to whine and cant 
about being nothing ? Rouse yourself 
and think ! God has surrounded you 
with a wealth of privileges and an infini- 
tude of priceless blessings. You inherit 
all the wisdom and genius and benevo- 
lence of the ages — riches that are vast, 
golden, immortal. You are placed within 
reach of the noblest possibilities ; you 
have all the help and advantage which 
come of dwelling in a Christian and civil- 
ized land ; you live in an age when the 
zeal and ardor and strength of young 
men are greatly in demand, and when the 
opportunities for usefulness are singularly 
favorable ; and yet in the meanest, lazi- 
est, most spiritless fashion you ask to be 
" nothing, nothing." Give up, once for 
all, this cowardly and characterless whim- 
pering. Be something. Be a man ! 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 45 

Shake off your dull sloth and rise to a 
nobler life. Do you murmur about the 
fierce and relentless competition ? There 
is no competition at the top. The crowd 
is at the bottom ; but look ahead, battle 
forward, fight your way against every 
difficulty, valiantly overcome every obsta- 
cle, and by the time you have climbed 
half-way to success you will find that the 
throng which once pressed around you 
begins to thin and disappear. And when 
by skill and industry, faith and fortitude, 
pluck and perseverence, you have attained 
the height you set your young heart on 
reaching, you will discover that there is 
no competition there — you will then be 
able to dictate your own terms, and 
claim the adequate reward of honest, 
skillful, earnest work. 

Yet another most fruitful cause of in- 
significance is what I should call " time- 
frittering." Some months ago several of 
the most prominent ministers in New 



46 FIRST BA TTIES. 

York were persuaded to give their views 
on " The Best Use of Leisure," for the 
guidance of young men. I am not sure 
that there is any topic of much greater 
importance than this, for you can generally 
tell the character of a man with almost in- 
fallible accuracy, by the way in which he 
uses his leisure hours. Time-frittering is 
undoubtedly the besetting sin of the young 
men of to-day. Thousands of fellows 
turn with horror from actual dissipation. 
But their virtue is of a negative and 
therefore of a very worthless kind. They 
abstain from evil, but they never do any 
good. The worst and most costly ex- 
travagance of which you can be guilty is 
to throw away your evenings. They are 
golden opportunities for which you are 
responsible, and of which you should 
make the best and highest use. One of 
the most popular of our writers and ora- 
tors was once asked how he managed to 
get through such a prodigious amount of 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 47 

work. " Simply by organizing my time," 
he replied. It is by this invaluable habit 
of organizing your leisure hours that you 
will be able to " wrestle from life its uses v 
and gather from life its beauty." It is won- 
derful what may be accomplished by de- 
voting the evenings to some useful study 
or helpful recreation. Earnest and per- 
sistent students have learnt several lan- 
guages in the odd hours of a busy career. 
Never be afraid of giving up one or two 
nights a week to your books. " Knowl- 
edge is power " all the world over, and 
what you learn will be sure to come in 
useful one day. It is an old saying, but 
I may repeat it with advantage, that 
" Time-wasting in youth is one of the 
mistakes which are beyond correction." 
Let me mention two more paths to 
insignificance. One is the loss of a good 
name. A blasted reputation will carry 
you into nothingness at express speed. 
Lose your character, and men will drop 



48 FIRST BATTLES. 

you with stinging promptitude, and you 
will sink into the lowest depths of insig- 
nificance. Scarcely anybody will want 
to know you — nobody will employ you, 
and only a few Christ-like souls will be 
ready to lend you a helping hand. We 
are too apt to read the Bible nowadays 
as if it were an old-world story, which 
has no bearing on the practical matters 
of everyday business. But has it never 
struck you that " a good name is rather 
to be chosen than great riches," even as 
a worldly investment ? Punctuality, con- 
centration of effort, ceaseless energy, and 
many other qualifications, will help a 
man forward ; but, possessing all these, 
he may yet be a miserable failure 
if he has not a good name. Character 
stands for a good deal, even in these days 
of fraud and deceit. A band of thieves 
will want an honest treasurer, and men 
who are themselves full of trickery will 
appreciate a sturdy, honest character in 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 49 

others. The young man whose word 
cannot be relied upon, whose honesty is 
not beyond suspicion, and whose personal 
life is not clean, will search in vain for a 
position in the business world to-day. 
Be careful that you never lose your good 
name. It may take you ten or twenty 
years to gain a high and spotless reputa- 
tion, but you can easily destroy it in ten 
minutes ; and a man who has once proved 
himself unworthy to be trusted will find 
it an almost helpless task to win back 
confidence and regard. He may even 
possess influence, and family position, and 
hosts of friends ; but the way upward 
w T ill be hard and thorny, because he once 
surrendered his reputation. Be on your 
guard, be watchful and vigilant ; let him 
that thinketh he standeth take heed lest 
he fall. Count your good name as a 
possession above price, and by the strong 
help of your Father God, never permit it 
to soiled or sullied. Honesty is better 



50 FIRST B A TTLES. 

than brilliance ; purity and uprightness 
are greater than dash and cleverness. 

I must refer to one other way in which 
you may become insignificant — it is by 
turning your back on God. Do that, 
and although you are decorated with all 
the tinsel honors of the world, your sel- 
fish, shrivelled, narrow little soul will be a 
daily torment to you. The foundation of 
all true success is an unswerving fidelity 
to the highest religious principle. I like 
to think of George Moore — the uncouth 
country boy — going to London with 
little education, less money, and no intro- 
duction ; indeed, with nothing but a brave 
heart and a fervent trust in his God. At 
first he met with the keenest disappoint- 
ments, but his manly courage never gave 
way. He was determined not to sink 
into nothingness and insignificance. He 
pushed, and prayed, and persevered, and 
the opening soon came, as it always does 
to vigorous and high-minded fellows, and 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 51 

after some years George Moore, the mer- 
chant prince, was giving away money at 
the rate of $80,000 a year. He would 
not have achieved this if he had been 
a thoughtless, shiftless, lounging ne'er- 
do-well. The great secret of his won- 
derful success was his simple unaffected 
piety. Men trusted him implicitly be- 
cause of his genuine godliness. Brothers, 
never imagine for a moment that Chris- 
tianity is a vapid, fastidious, sentimental 
thing. The truest heroes have been the 
truest Christians. Think of Paul and 
Luther, and Havelock and Gordon, Gen- 
eral Lee and strong, noble, manly souls, 
unfettered by guile or meanness, unfal- 
tering in their transparent sincerity of 
character, and in their unbending loyalty 
to truth. Believe me, nothing will do so 
much to save a man from insignificance 
as a chivalrous, upright character, and a 
simple, stalwart faith in God. 



52 FIRST BATTLES. 

Go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn, 

But in the armor of a pure intent ; 

Great duties are before you, and great aims, 

And whether crowned or crownless when jou fall, 

It matters not, so be God's work is done. 



IV. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLEASURE. 

" We must deal ■with pleasures as we do -with honey, only 
touch them xvith the tip of the finger, and not -with 
the whole hand, for fear of surfeit." — Venerable 

Bede. 

" They came to a delicate plain called Ease, where they 
■went with much content, but that plain -was but narrow, 
so they -were quickly got over it." — Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress. 

Pleasure is the most uncertain thing in 
the world. That which gives one man 
a glow of genuine happiness is to another 
man nothing but unutterable weariness. 
And more remarkable still, that which 
bores a man at one time will delight him 
at another. But the strangest character- 
istic of pleasure is this : that it is not to be 
bought with money, or acquired by effort, 
or secured by influence. " Fly pleasure," 
says Shakespeare, " and it will follow 
thee." And we may well add, u Pursue 
it, and it will utterly fade away." Pleas- 

(53) 



54 FIRST BA TTLES. 

ures are transitory, mysterious, and, to a 
large extent, dangerous. They are dan- 
gerous in this sense, that they need to be 
governed, restrained, and limited by wis- 
dom, by piety, and by Christian sagacity. 
The transient and evanescent nature 
of pleasure is seen in the fact that half 
the enjoyment of life is in anticipation. 
How the keen, shrewd man of business 
revels in his work ! To him it is full of 
romance, interest, and excitement. He 
has made up his mind to succeed, to at- 
tain a high reputation, to build up a great 
career, and to earn a fortune. Now look 
ahead. He has completed his task and 
retired from work. All his desires are 
more than fulfilled, and life would seem 
to be a garden of beauty and comfort and 
unsullied joy. That is where you are 
mistaken. He is miserable. He has 
acquired a huge fortune, but his happiest 
days were spent in making it ; and he 
would give a good deal to be back in the 



PHIL OSOPH Y OF PLEA S URE. 5 5 

dingy little city office, where he planned 
his campaigns and enjoyed his triumphs. 
All the pleasure, you see, was in the 
anticipation. 

This is often the case, also, in planning 
a holiday. For weeks beforehand you 
spend long hours in poring over guide- 
books, studying time-tables, working out 
routes, and interviewing tourist agents. 
What a time you are going to enjoy ! 
And when the tour begins, you wonder 
what you left home for. Was it to see 
this ? Is that the paradise pictured in 
the guide-books and praised in the rail- 
way advertisements ? It is grand, cer- 
tainly ; but you expected so much more. 
All the pleasure was in the anticipation. 
So when you visit a great man, you look 
fowrard with eager delight to the match- 
less wit and the lofty wisdom you will 
gain from his lips. And when the inter- 
view is over, you are asking to what 
accident that man owes his reputation. 



56 FIRST BA TTLES. 

He was positively dull ; and yet the 
world hangs upon his utterances. 

Superficial as pleasure is, it occupies a 
very large and prominent part in life. 
Men will do for pleasure what nothing 
else under heaven could prevail upon 
them to attempt. See the athletic young 
men grinding their bicycles up a steep hill 
till the machines groan under the desper- 
ate and painful effort. If requested by 
their employers to work with half this 
zeal and persistence, they would promatly 
and indignantly resign. See the dense 
swaying mass of people outside a theatre, 
clamoring for admission. They will en- 
dure the utmost inconvenience and dis- 
comfort in order to obtain a few hours 
of recreation. The love of pleasure in- 
fluences the masses with magnetic effect. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that 
the man who writes a popular song exerts 
a greater power than the man who pro- 
duces a thousand sermons. The most 



PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 57 

brilliant discourse will only reach a few 
thousand hearers ; and even when the 
press gives it wings, and sends it flutter- 
ing through ten thousand homes, its work 
is still limited. But think of the immeas- 
urable power of song. A million sermons 
would not reach the people who have 
been influenced by the " Lost Chord" or 
the " Better Land." 

It is time that the Church took her 
part in providing rational pleasures for 
the people. Why not start a music-hall 
and run it on right lines, without beer 
and without vulgarity > Why should 
Christianity calmly submit to be outdone 
in this direction ? With certain classes 
the Church has absolutely no chance. Its 
doors are opened on fifty days in the 
year, but the theatres and the music halls 
are busy for three hundred days in the 
year, and it is not difficult for the devil to 
outdo in six nights the good which the 
Church has accomplished in one. We 



5 8 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

want some one to do for the people's 
amusements what the London Religious 
Tract Society, and many private firms 
have done for the people's literature. In 
one case the argument is this : " Here are 
bad books that stir np evil passions, dis- 
seminate degrading thoughts, and work 
the ruin of the people. Now books are 
not in themselves bad. Let us therefore 
provide good reading, that shall be as 
interesting and attractive as the bad ; 
reading that shall be pure but not puri- 
tanical, mildly exciting but not contamin- 
ating and scrofulous." Why should we 
not reason in the same eminently wise 
and practical way regarding amusements ? 
Let us argue thus : " Here is a great 
city, absolutely honeycombed with places 
of amusement. Some of them are hope- 
lessly bad and demoralizing, the atmos- 
phere is foetid and enervating, and the en- 
tertainment is often unblushingly filthy. 
And yet amusement is not necessarily an 



PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 59 

evil. It has been shown that there is a 
profitable market for good books. Why 
not also as large a demand for pure pleas- 
ures ? Let us therefore provide laughter 
that shall be clean, merriment that shall 
have no pain in it, pleasure that shall 
never be the forerunner of torment." 
The wise and Christian policy is to sup- 
port and promote the good, and to reject 
and annihilate the evil. Pure amuse- 
ments would do as much to promote the 
welfare of the people as high-class fiction 
has done. 

I cannot imagine any man finding sat- 
isfactory delight in dancing. There may 
be no harm in a quiet dance amongst the 
home circle. But the public dancing- 
rooms are nothing less than dens of de- 
struction. Dancing, when indulged in at 
promiscuous assemblies, has two grave 
dangers. There is a tendency to make it 
the one business of life ; indeed, I have 
known men whose conversation seldom 



60 FIRST BATTLES. 

rose beyond vague and mysterious dis- 
cussions regarding the relative value of 
the waltz and schottisch. It also leads to 
late hours, and you may be quite sure that 
the young man who turns up at business 
in evening dress, with sleepy eyes, weary 
frame, and a splitting headache, will soon 
find himself presented with an indefinite 
holiday. Dancing has been described as 
" hugging to music, " and it is undoubted- 
ly true that, apart from the music, Mrs. 
Grundy would soon step in and put a stop 
to the whole business. It is said that 
dancing leads to marriage. That may be 
true ; but who would care to look for a 
wife amongst the giddy, thoughtless, 
gushing creatures at a public dance ? 

Pleasure is an excellent thing if it is 
well chosen, wisely guarded and vigor- 
ously controlled. So long as you can 
master it and keep it in its place, all will 
be well ; but give yourself up to it, and 
the Biblical prophecy shall be fulfilled, 



PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 61 

" He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor 
man." The most pleasureless man in the 
world is the man whose whole life is de- 
voted to the pursuit of pleasure. Pleas- 
ure is like fire — a useful and indispensable 
servant, but a dangerous and fatal master. 
A room with a fire in it is comfortable ; 
a room all fire means death and destruc- 
tion. So it is with pleasure. A life with 
pleasure in it is entirely right and satisfac- 
tor}' ; but a life all pleasure is not life at 
all, the grand purposes of life are forgot- 
ten, the noblest ideals are buried under a 
load of reckless mirth arid senseless tom- 
foolery. 

I am not speaking rashly, but with 
careful forethought, and as the result of 
some years of observation and experience, 
when I say that the cause of failure in five 
out of every six young men is the insane 
passion for pleasure. Thousands of men 
come to the large cities every year, all 
bent upon success. What is the result? 



62 FIRST BATTLES. 

Their great aims are soon forgotten, their 
youthly enthusiasm quickly cools, and 
they have to rub along with a small wage 
which hardly keeps them alive. The 
cause is not always to be found in lack of 
ability or failure of character. It lies in a 
love of debilitating and unwholesome 
pleasures. When they should be en- 
gaged in healthful physical exercises or in 
strenuous mental improvement, they are 
kicking up their heels in a dancing-hall, or 
stewing in the gallery of a third-rate the- 
atre. Such men will fail, inevitably and 
completely. They will sink by degrees. 
Gambling will fascinate them, strong 
drink will stupefy them, bad men will vic- 
timise them, and through love of pleasure 
they will become "poor men," stunted in 
intellect, enfeebled in body, ruined in soul. 
Beware, then, my brothers, of riotous 
and irrational pleasures. The disillusion- 
ment is swift and terrible, and leaves a 
lasting scar behind. The pleasures that 



PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 63 

satisfy and invigorate are to be found in 
sturdy exercise, in healthful rambles 
through the verdant country, or amid the 
exquisite and ever-varying delights of the 
sea-shore, in the enjoyment of good 
books, noble pictures, and soul-stirring 
music. These are pleasures upon which 
you can ask the blessing of God, pleas- 
ures in which you can look for the com- 
panionship of your Master, Christ. They 
may not excite, but they recreate, and 
that is what you want. Remember, no 
man has a right to any enjoyment until he 
has earned it by steady, persevering toil. 
Before you can properly appreciate an 
evening's pleasure, you must do a day's 
work, and do it with thoroughness and 
alacrity. Those who never do any work 
never enjoy a holiday. 

Remember, also— and this is the chief 
thing after all — that the truest pleasure to 
be found on earth is in self-sacrificing, 
Christian service. The only happy life is 



64 FIRST BA TTLES. 

that which is lived "unto God." Spend 
much of your leisure in trying to bring 
heaven's rest nearer to earth's weariness. 
Succour the helpless, stand up for the op- 
pressed, oppose every prevailing evil, seek 
the highest welfare of men, and you will 
experience a sacred rapture in the glow- 
ing brightness of which all earth's super- 
ficial pleasures will rapidly fade away. 
Such work will prevent all morbid intro- 
spection, all the wretched ennui of a self- 
centred existence, and it will drive away 
all melancholy and gloom. The only last- 
ing pleasure is that which is found in an 
inflexible allegiance to duty, and in earn- 
est social service for Jesus Christ. 



V. 

CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 

" O, 'while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil." 

— Shakespeare. 

If there is anything which Christianity 
needs to-day it is the practical and sagac- 
ious help of business men. Christianity 
has suffered more from the dense stupid- 
ity of some of its followers than from the 
venomous opposition of all its enemies. 
A lazy, half-hearted, careless Christian 
can do more harm to Christ's cause than 
the most unscrupulous atheist. And if 
there is anything which commerce needs 
to-day, it is the cleansing ennobling influ- 
ence of Christianity. The men who are 
immersed in the burning excitement and 
relentless whirl of business will be almost 
surprised if you tell them that Christian- 
ity is of far greater importance than all 
their commerce. They will laugh with 

(65) 



66 FIRST BA TTLES. 

a scornful incredulity, but it is a simple 
fact nevertheless. And for this reason, 
that commerce builds a fortune, but 
Christianity builds a character ; commerce 
gives you a bank balance, but Christianity 
gives you an unfailing fund of happiness ; 
commerce makes money, but Christianity 
makes men. And it makes what Carlyle 
used to call, "upright, downright, straight- 
forward, all-round men." It smashes the 
unjust weights, breaks in pieces the fraud- 
ulent measures, banishes all trickery and 
cunning, kills the ready and plausible lie, 
and enables weak, imperfect, tempted 
men to practice the highest truthfulness 
and the sturdiest honesty. 

I fear it must be admitted that these 
are days of great commercial corruption. 
There is, for instance, a despiciable sys- 
tem of bribery which is cleverly and con- 
veniently disguised by such terms as 
"commissions" and "presents." It is 
time that all this trickery should be abol- 



CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 67 

ished, so that the polished rogues who 
have for so long waxed fat on the " usual 
commission," may be compelled to give 
up their secret spoils and enjoy the re- 
freshing novelty of honest work. Then 
there is the scandalous and revolting sys- 
tem of " sweating," and many other foul 
systems of oppression and injustice, which 
indicate that the commercial atmosphere 
sadly needs the purifying influence of a 
living Christianity. 

The Churches have been greatly to 
blame for much of the anti-Christian 
character of present-day commerce. 
They have busied themselves with theo- 
logical sham-fights, and have played at 
conflicts in the clouds, when they ought 
to have descended into the actual throb- 
bing, palpitating life of the people and 
fought a stern battle for uprightness and 
rectitude. And they have smilingly and 
gratefully accepted the haughty patronage 
and substantial checks of their wealthy 



68 FIRST BA TTLES. 

supporters, without a single inquiry as to 
the glaring immoralities by which these 
men had heaped up their ill-gotten spoils. 
Henceforth the battle of Christianity will, 
to a large extent, have to be fought out 
in the counting-house and the ware-house. 
And the victory will not have been won 
so long as it is possible for men to be re- 
ceived with ringing cheers in religious 
assemblies, while they are grinding the 
life out of their unhappy employes, and 
indulging in practices which may be re- 
garded in the city as commercially expe- 
dient, but looked at in the light of Christ's 
gospel are absolutely antagonistic to truth 
and righteousness. 

There is one lie which needs to be 
promptly and publicly exposed. I refer 
to the miserable delusion which supposes 
that a man cannot be at once honest and 
successful in business. The best answer 
to this debasing theory is to be found in 
the lives of such men as the late William 



CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 69 

E. Dodge, of New York, and Samuel 
Morley, of London. They were as un- 
swervingly upright as they were enor- 
mously prosperous. It is an undeniable 
fact that the principles of the sermon on 
the Mount, when faithfully carried out, 
form the surest guide to genuine success 
in the market-place of to-day. The man 
who gains a reputation for scrupulous 
fidelity is the man everybody will want 
to do business with. Let him guard the 
most trivial details of his business with 
tender jealously, let him discharge every 
obligation with rigorous exactness, and 
then when success crowns his efforts, he 
will have maintained what is worth far 
more than countless fortunes, an un- 
stained name, an unsullied record, and a 
conscience void of offence. 

" But," says a young man, 6i I have 
been honest, but I have not been success- 
ful." Of course not ! Merely negative 
virtues are absolutely valueless. The 



70 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

office boy is not promoted because he 
never stole the stamps, but on account 
of his energy and vigilance, his ability and 
intelligence. The post assigned to you 
now may seem woefully small and unim- 
portant, but it is just the way in which 
you do or neglect these apparently trifling 
duties that will make or mar your future. 
Never be discouraged because your pres- 
ent position is humble and obscure. If 
you sit down and mourn you will never 
get on. Do you want a better place ? 
Then outgrow the one you are in. Do 
your present work — lowly and monoto- 
nous as it may seem — with as much vigor 
and care as if it were of crowning im- 
portance. Fit yourself by strenuous cul- 
ture for the opportunity which will surely 
come. But never dream that you can be 
a success because you abstain from down- 
right evil. You have got to do some- 
thing, and what is more, you have got to 
do it well, do it better than you have ever 



CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 71 

done it before, and do it better than any- 
body else can do it. Then success is sure 
to follow. 

Do you think that business life is hum- 
drum and prosaic ? That shows how 
little you know about it. I tell you it is 
full of sublimest romance and deepest in- 
terest. You may look back longingly to 
the days when men could make a valiant 
stand for the right, and prove their faith- 
fulness to God by going manfully to the 
stake. But circumstances make no differ- 
ence to the true hero. If you cannot 
fight the battle of purity 'and virtue in a 
city office, you would never have braved 
the faggot-fire in the old days of martyr- 
dom. There is a holy war to be waged 
to-day. Never were self-sacrificing, hero- 
ic young men so greatly needed as. they 
are now. You have to preserve your 
own manhood chaste and pure in the midst 
of flaring enticements to evil. You have 
to promote a nobler spirit in commerce, a 



72 FIRST BATTLES. 

more brotherly and righteous spirit, which 
shall lift business into a sweeter atmos- 
phere and turn the factory into a sanctu- 
ary. Never believe that business is a 
dull, bald, grey, uninteresting thing. It 
simply glows with poetry and romance. 
Let us peep into a little city office. 
There is a young man, with a pale and 
haggard countenance • he sits on a high 
stool counting checks. He earns barely 
two dollars a day, and yet a year or two 
ago he had the temerity to marry a fair, 
sweet girl. He loved her, and laughed at 
the warnings of stern, logical, social econ- 
omists. Now, she is thin and weak and 
ill ; and as he left her bedside this morn- 
ing the doctor remarked in commanding 
tones, that wine — " port, sir, good port " 
— was absolutely necessary, and that a 
change of air would soon be advisable. 
And on twelve dollars a week ! A fifty 
dollar bill is in the young man's hand. 
How he trembles ! Dare he do it ? 



CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 73 

Three months hence the amount can be 
repaid and no one will be the wiser. It 
is just the amount he needed ! Oh, the 
desperate conflict ; but he is gloriously 
victorious. He jumps from his stool, 
defies the tempting devil, locks the 
money in the safe, and whispers, in a 
voice broken with tears, "Lord, help 
me!" 

Ah! the race of heroes is not extinct. 
There is plenty of romance in the appar- 
ently dull routine of business life. Men 
who toil cheerily and live celibate lives in 
order to care for a dear old mother who 
has no other helper; great-hearted fellows 
who might rise to wealth if they would 
stoop to trickery, but who keep their 
hands clean and their hearts pure in spite 
of all the chicanery and cunning of the 
city — these are earth's truest heroes. 
And you can do the same if you put your 
trust in the unfailing help of a living 
Christ. 



74 FIRST BATTLES. 

Beware of mere cleverness. There is 
a superficial kind of shrewdness which is 
extremely dangerous. The man who is 
only clever is always in peril of becoming 
a trickster — ever dodging, shifting, and 
deceiving. In these days of shallow 
knowledge and empty boasting, men 
need to be restrained and guided by the 
great example of the Christ life. In the 
Master we have all the best qualities of 
the ideal manhood combined in a perfect 
model. He had a mind quick to per- 
ceive, and a soul pure and clear as the 
noonday sun. It is for this lofty charac- 
ter that we must strive and pray. We 
want intellectual alacrity, but we also 
want unflinching rectitude. " There is 
only one post for you," said Carlyle to a 
bad man, " and that is — perpetual presi- 
dent of the Heaven and Hell Amalgama- 
tion Society." There are many men in 
commerce of whom that would be true. 
They are engaged in a hopeless attempt 



CHRIST AND COMMERCE. 75 

to serve God and mammon — to increase 
their wealth by the maximum of swind- 
ling, while they try to deaden their con- 
science by the minimum of empty and 
formal pietism. It will never do. The 
attempt can only end in failure and dis- 
honor and endless shame. But the man 
who by the power of an ever-present 
Christ has been able to conquer himself, 
who has calmly ignored the sneers of the 
cynic and resolutely withstood the wiles 
of the tempter — that man has in his 
heart the sublime consciousness of having 
done right, and his path is bathed in 
brightness. He is governed by principle 
instead of passion, by truth instead of 
trickery. His soul is possessed by an 
unspeakable peace, his heart is filled with 
an unfaltering trust in God, and he has 
no damning recollection of cruel wrong 
or foul injustice to darken his outlook 
and destroy his rest. He may not be 
followed by the fawning adulation of 



76 FIRST BATTLES. 

men, but with the pure in heart he will 
see God. And that will be far better 
than if he had gained the whole world 
and lost his own soul. 



VI. 

ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 

If thou art wor?i and hard beset 

With troubles that you wouldst forget, 

If thou ivouldst read a lesson that will , 

Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep. 

Go to the -woods and hills .' no tears 

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 

H. W. Longfellow* 

I believe no one in this world enjoys a 
holiday more thoroughly than the hard- 
working business young man, and for this 
reason — that fifty weeks of honest toil 
form the best possible preparation for two 
weeks' recreation. Many a man does 
not think so, I admit. When he sees the 
" gilded youths " who have nothing to do 
from January ist to December 31st but 
go a-pleasuring, he looks around at his 
dingy office, counts the weary weeks that 
have to elapse before his humble two 
weeks' vacation, and feels like breaking 

(77) 



78 FIRST BATTLES. 

the tenth commandment. He is under 
an immense delusion. u If all the year 
were playing holidays, to sport would be 
as tedious as to work. " No man revels 
in twelve or twenty days' exemption 
from toil like the busy worker who has 
been plodding manfully for eleven long 
months to earn his bread, and who, in 
spare hours, has Jived earnestly and 
fought valiantly in order to acquire a cul- 
tured mind and achieve a lofty character. 
No man need forswear the luxury of a 
holiday because he is poor. The most 
rational and refreshing delights are gener- 
ally the cheapest. I have had better hol- 
idays for twenty dollars than I have had 
for two hundred. Those who travel 
most sometimes see the least. You may 
rush through Europe and squander your 
substance at fashionable hotels only to be 
bored by the inanity of table-cPhote chat- 
ter, bewildered by the eccentricities of 
railway porters, pestered by garrulous 



ABOUT HO LID A YS. 79 

guides, and broiled by the hot suns of 
Continental cities. I shall never forget 
the fatigue I endured after my first visit 
to Paris. Those brilliant boulevards and 
glittering cafes and feverish crowds — how 
I tired of them all; and how supremely 
happy I felt for a week afterwards, rest- 
ing in a quiet French seaside town, where 
I could dine when I liked, dress as I 
liked, and do what I liked, and where no 
one thought it undignified to lie on the 
sands in flannels with the Tauchnitz edi- 
tion of the last new romance. I would 
not underrate the value of a European 
trip to a healthy young man — nothing 
surely could be more interesting or de- 
lightful ; but for a jaded mind and a 
weary body there is, perhaps, better relax- 
ation to be found nearer home. There is no 
lack of variety in temperature and scenery 
within the compass of reasonable distance, 
and many delightful resorts are to be dis- 
covered by a little effort and inquiry. 



80 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

When Mr. Ruskin urges us to play 
wisely as well as to work well, he gives 
us a very necessary and important advice. 
What can be more irrational than the 
way in which many people spend their 
holidays ? They frequently toil much 
harder during what they playfully term 
their " vacation " than under the most 
strenuous pressure of business. They 
either rush from monument to museum, 
from park to picture-gallery, from cafe to 
cathedral, in a cruel but conscientious 
attempt to "do Europe," or else they 
" rest " amid the shrill and vulgar 
choruses of nigger minstrels and the mad 
whirl of fashionable folly. All this is a 
huge blunder. Do you follow a seden- 
tary occupation ? Then, why not spend 
your holiday on a wheel ? Mounted on 
a good cycle you can roam through the 
most charming country entirely at your 
own sweet will. The expense is incon- 
siderable, the exercise healthy, and the 



ABOUT HO LI DA YS. 8 1 

enjoyment boundless. Others will prefer 
rowing, and will gain equally beneficial 
results. I always feel that the vain crea- 
tures who deck themselves in gorgeous 
raiment, squander money on unnecessary 
luxuries, and then start up and down the 
crowded promenade of a fashionable re- 
sort all day, and breathe the vitiated at- 
mosphere of the dancing saloon at night, 
are greatly to be pitied. What do they 
know of the simple, honest pleasures of 
pure air, plain food, genial companionship, 
and healthy exercise? Yet these are 
the chief desiderata of a real holiday, and 
while their value is priceless their cost is 
insignificant. 

How can we make sure of an exhilarat- 
ing and thoroughly satisfactory holiday ? 
Let me offer a few friendly suggestions, 
(i.) By going at the right time, Sep- 
tember is probably the best month, if you 
can conveniently manage it. The air is 
cool and bracing, popular resorts are not 



82 FIRST BATTLES. 

overcrowded, and the voice of the stroll- 
ing musician is no longer heard in the 
streets. (2.) By ear?iing it. The man 
who has worked perseveringly through- 
out the year goes away with a clear con- 
science, and enjoys his vacation with a 
buoyancy of spirit and a lightness of 
heart sufficient to turn the idler and 
lounger green with envy. (3.) By -pre- 
paring for it. The joys of anticipation 
are often greater than the pleasures of 
realization. Having chosen a place that 
will suit your tastes and temperament, 
read up all the best books that refer to it, 
plan a pleasant route, and inquire for 
comfortable but not necessarily expen- 
sive quarters. (4.) By sharing it with 
genial companions. It is far better to 
be alone than to endure the endless 
cackle of feather-brained chatterers, or 
the morbid growls of dyspeptic cynics. 
Amongst " genial companions " I would 
include books. To enjoy a holiday we 



ABOUT HO LID A YS. 83 

need not put aside all work. What we 
want, as a rule, is not so much entire 
rest as change of scene and occupation. 
Why not take a few books for which no 
time could be found in the work-days ? 
To read about the places visited will help 
to store the mind with useful information. 
(5.) By keeping your eyes wide open. 
I know men who have been veritable 
globe-trotters, and yet they are as insular 
in their sympathies, and as narrow in 
their information, as the most thorough- 
bred Cockney. All the inspiring paint- 
ings and noble architecture, all the pre- 
cious memorials of genius and antiquity, 
have failed to make the slightest impres- 
sion ; but they will tell you with the ut- 
most gravity, that in London the cost of 
shaving was only half as much as in New 
York; that in Venice the lodgings were 
shockingly vile ; and that Paris was the 
only place where they could get decent 
coffee. 



84 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

Holidays have their dangers. Re- 
straints are removed — no one knows you 
— and you are in the extremely perilous 
position of being able to do as you like. 
I have seen young men do things abroad 
which they would have solemnly con- 
demned at home. Beware of the "gaiety 
of those whose headaches nail them to a 
noonday bed ; whose haggard eyes flash 
desperation and betray pangs." Healthy 
merriment and innocent pleasure will do 
us all good ; but may God save us from 
the "gaiety that fills the bones with pain, 
the mouth with blasphemy, and the heart 
with woe." There is such a gaiety, and 
it flashes with seductive charm in many 
a holiday haunt. No recreation is worth 
the name which does not make us buoy- 
ant with renewed health, eager for social 
service, and strong for daily toil. 



VII. 

SHAMS. 

"Some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of 
mischiefs" — Shakespeare. 

"2~ou can fool some of the people all the time, and all 
the people some of the time* but you can't fool all the 
people all the time." — Abraham Lincoln. 

To say that a sham is the most despic- 
able thing in the world is merely to utter 
an obvious truism. To observe that so- 
ciety is cursed by shams is only to ex- 
press the most general sentiment. And 
yet it is possible that we have not alto- 
gether realized how deplorable is the in- 
fluence of the hypocritical spirit — how it 
poisons the moral atmosphere, hinders all 
good work, and casts a withering blight 
over everything it touches. The weakest 
point in any body of men is that occupied 
by the counterfeits, the frauds, the im- 
postors. Any political party might attain 
office to-morrow if all its followers were 

(85) 



86 FIRST BATTLES. 

downright in earnest. Christianity might 
conquer the world in a year if every man 
who bears the name of Christ were de- 
termined, loyal, burning with fervid zeal, 
and thoroughly genuine and sincere. 
Then every disciple would be terrible in 
battle, irresistible in prayer, and stalwart 
in faith. But the victory is postponed by 
the half-hearted, the hesitating, the shams, 
the hypocrites, the people who are never 
to be depended upon. 

Let us glance rapidly at a few of these 
counterfeits. Perhaps the most terrible 
hindrance to the free and unrestricted 
progress of Christianity is the religious 
sham. The question that proves such a 
stumbling-block to thousands of intelli- 
gent and large-hearted young men to-day 
is this : " How is it that while profess- 
ing Christians are frequently mean and 
selfish and proud, worldlings are so often 
generous and brotherly and Christ-like?" 
" Look there," said a young man to Pro- 



SHAMS. 87 



fessor Drummond, "you see that elderly 
gentleman ? He is the founder of our in- 
fidel club. " " But, " said the Professor, 
" he is a leading elder of the Church. " 
" I know he is, " was the young man's 
reply, " but he founded our infidel club. 
Every man in the village knows what a 
humbug he is, and so we will have noth- 
ing to do with religion. " It is all very 
well to say that Christianity should notbe 
judged by such feeble and unworthy spec- 
imens — the fact remains that it is judged 
by those who profess it ; and so long as 
that is the case, every sham representa- 
tive will be a source of weakness and a 
hindrance to all true progress. 

The religion which is going to influence 
the world to-day is a religion not merely 
of creeds but of conduct — a religion that 
softens the heart, controls the passions, 
checks the hasty and impatient word, and 
purifies the life both of the home and the 
office. " I would not give much for that 



FIRST BATTLES. 



man's religion, " said Rowland Hill, 
"whose very cat and dog are not better 
for it. " Every Christian should so live 
as to be able to say with the good old 
Methodist preacher, u If you don't believe 
I am a Christian, ask my wife!" A re- 
ligion which is confined to a prayer-meet- 
ing is a counterfeit religion, and may be 
swept away as absolutely valueless ; true 
Christianity sweetens the whole life, and 
uplifts everything it touches. There is 
no better defense of Christianity than the 
generous character and upright life of a 
true man, and there is no more danger- 
ous enemy of Christianity than the crea- 
ture who steals "the livery of the Court 
of Heaven to serve the devil in, " whose 
tongue is fluent with plausible profes- 
sions while his hands are busy with the 
works of hell. 

An-Athenian once delivered a long and 
brilliant speech, in which he made large 
and liberal promises. Another — who 



SHAMS. Sg 



lacked eloquence but was full of sincerity 
— got up and said, "Men of Athens, all 
that he has promised I will do. " That 
is the spirit we need to-day. There is 
nothing more pitiable than to see good 
men wasting time and talent in little, 
unworthy squabbles about their pet dog- 
mas, while their next door neighbors are 
going to the devil for want of a strong 
arm of help and a kindly word of cheer. 
The man who boasts that his soul is 
saved and never feeds a poor body or 
cheers a sad heart is a living contradic- 
tion — an awful sham ! " Quit your mean- 
ness " is a favorite expression with a cer- 
tain revival preacher, and really it is a 
very necessary piece of advice. The 
popular idea of religion is a comfortable, 
jog-trot, respectable kind of life — an oc- 
casional visit to a church, a prompt pay- 
ment of pew rents, a few stray sub- 
scriptions to painfully importunate collec- 



oo FIRST BA TTLES. 

tors, and then you may be as selfish and 

cal as the rest of the world. This is 

meanness — contemptible and pitiable. 

"\:h:t:t these iazv sentiment- 
alists, these mti Q.':;:r:z?,-zo^i. 
these religious shams, who never do a 
day's helpful work to relieve the world's 
agony cr minister to the worichs 
ties. There are thousands rf young men 
in our homes and churches who indo- 
lently stand aloof from the great battle 
for good and right and truth. Is this 
manly, or chivalrous, or Christ-like ? Is 
it not cowardly and selfish and mean ? 
How can we be surprised if the Master 
should pronounce over all such shams 
those sad words that are full of tears. 

"In a s m n c h a s ye d id it not ' ' 

Then there is the sham in business. 
He is lazy, flabby j si enly, careless. He 
shrinks from the monotony of routine, 
despises the daily drudgery, postpones 



SHAMS. 91 



every disagreeable duty, and then won- 
ders how it is that he is such an utter 
failure in life. Lowell has told us that 

Folks thet worked thorough was the folks that thriv, 
But bad work follers ye ez long's ye live, 
Ye can't get red on't just az sureaz sin, 
It's allers askin' to be done agin. 

We all know men who work in this 
superficial way. They do everything 
lazily, partially, unsatisfactorily. Their 
work will not bear inspection — it may be 
showy, but it is also valueless. What 
thou doest, do well, is the best motto for 
young men to-day. The man who knows 
how to do one thing thoroughly, and is 
determined to do it better than anybody 
else, is the man who will succeed. Mr. 
Vanderbilt paid his cook a salary of 
$10,000 a year because he understood the 
art of cooking to perfection. As a well 
known humorist says in his funny way, 
"If Monsieur Sauceagravi could cook 
tolerably well, and shoot a little, and 



92 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

speak three languages tolerably well, and 
keep books fairly, and could telegraph a 
little — and so on with a dozen other 
things — he wouldn't get ten thousand a 
year for it." No, what is needed is 
strenuous concentration of effort. Aim 
definitely at one great object and bring 
all your powers to bear upon the work in 
hand, and you cannot fail to rise to fairer 
heights of honor and achievement. 

Do you know the sham sceptic — the 
man who is glad of any excuse for tramp- 
ling on Christianity ? " I hate cant," he 
says, with great unction and self-satisfac- 
tion, forgetting that Christianity by no 
means possesses the monopoly in cant. 
There is a good deal of cant about some 
atheists. It is not always the "fool" 
who says " there is no God ; " it is very 
frequently the arrogant sham, who thinks 
it supremely clever to display his shallow 
and flippant atheism. He will learn one 
day that honest, manly Christianity is 



SHAMS. 93 



the avowed enemy of "cant," and hates 
and suppresses it wherever it lurks, 
whether in the form of superficial pietism 
or hypocritical infidelity. 

While I sympathize from my very 
heart with earnest men who reject Chris- 
tianity, because of the shortcomings oi its 
professors, I must still maintain that their 
position is utterly childish and illogical. 
It is really a most lamentable fact when 
men come into the region of religion 
they so often leave their common sense 
behind them. In politics they are influ- 
enced by the great party leaders, not by 
flabby wire-pullers. Sensible citizens do 
not reject the Republican party when a 
few weak-kneed constituents turn trai- 
tors ; nor do honest Democrats falter at 
the sight of a handful of feeble renegades. 
And yet in religion the same persons will 
allow their minds to be prejudiced by the 
apparent inconsistencies of any blatant 
professor, rather than go straight to 



94 FIRST BATTLES. 

the great Founder of the Christian faith, 
who alone can show them what Chris- 
tianity really is. Surely the answer of 
Christ to any young man who excused 
himself from discipleship on account of 
the unlovely lives of professors, would 
be, " What is that to thee ? Follow thou 
Me" It is neither fair nor manly to 
point to the failings of professing Chris- 
tians as a reason for ignoring Jesus Christ. 
One man hunts up a bigot, another dis- 
covers a Pharisee, and a third glances 
sneeringly at some faltering and unhappy 
struggler who has blundered back into 
sin and shame ; and then in scornful 
chorus they cry, " Behold, this is Chris- 
tianity ! " The derision is utterly unjust. 
Christ calls men to Himself. He is the 
typical man — His was the perfect life — 
He is the supreme example. 

With every desire to look on the bright 
side of things and magnify the redeeming 
features of the age, I must frankly admit 



SHAMS. 95 



that there is amongst men to-day a start- 
ling amount of shallowness and superfici- 
ality of thought. Instead of honestly 
thinking out great problems, and labor- 
iously unwinding the puzzles of life, they 
indulge in mental gymnastics and hastily 
jump at conclusions. We have all around 
us feeble imitations of Robert Elsmere. 
Such men meet a free-thinking friend, 
listen to his tall but trumpery talk, and 
immediately, with scarcely a moment's 
heartache or an hour's mental struggle, 
throw overboard the little religion they 
possessed, and denounce the Evangel of 
Christ as a myth and a sham. The most 
uncertain of political weathercocks would 
refuse to budge an inch on the flimsy 
evidence which sends these young men 
into the dreary night of a Christless life. 
Can anything be more painful than the 
careless and frivolous spirit with which 
they leap into the cold abyss ? Self-con- 
fident youths, with more collar than cul- 



96 FIRST BATTLES. 

ture, and more millinery than manliness, 
swallow two or three pages of a magizine 
article, and, without questioning the cre- 
dentials of the writer, calmly turn their 
back upon their Father God, and go out 
to sip the latest fashionable mixed drink 
at the hotel bar. 

Very few of us have ever thought what 
it is to be a Christian. When we see a 
man ticketed as orthodox in creed and 
regular in church attendance, and then 
discover that he is harsh and bitter and 
sensual, we* immediately begin to throw 
stones at Christianity. But that man is 
not a Christian ! He may cry, " Lord, 
Lord," but loud professions will never 
open the kingdom of heaven. " Follow 
thou Me" is the great command. By no 
other test are we at liberty to judge our 
brethren. If any man lives the Christ 
life then he is a Christian, whatever may 
be the opinion of the pedantic critic or 
the priestly ceremonialist. The duty of 



SHAMS. 97 



every young man is not to dissect disci- 
ples but to study Christ. Pure religion 
and undefiled is to do the will of God on 
earth as angels do it in heaven. 

Now turn for a moment to another 
kind of sham — the society sham — the 
miserable spirit of counterfeit respectabil- 
ity. It is not greatly afraid of evil, but 
it particularly hates the appearance of 
evil. " People might talk " — that is the 
awful bogie that frightens society, and the 
characterless chatter of brainless men 
and women is more to be dreaded than 
all the bitterness of wrongdoing. This 
hypocritical system of sham respectability 
is dead against those peculiar " people " 
who hold out hands of welcome and 
friendship to ragged castaways, prodi- 
gals, and sinners, and do other strange 
and eccentric things. It crushes kindli- 
ness out of young hearts ; smothers the 
vivacity of buoyant spirits ; reckons de- 
corum to be more than purity, good 



98 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

breeding to be far above honesty, and the 
esteem of Society (with a large "s") to 
be infinitely preferable to Heaven's " Well 
done ! " You may be mean, selfish, and 
cowardly ; but you must not eat peas 
with your knife. You may be hard- 
hearted, cynical, and cruel, if you will, 
but consent to wear an unhealthy and 
uncomfortable stove-pipe hat on Sundays, 
and avoid speaking to any man to whom 
you have not been formally introduced. 
It has a smile for the well-dressed de- 
bauche, the polite and wealthy knave ; 
but it would cast into outer darkness the 
repentant Magdalene to whom Christ ex- 
tended infinite sympathy. 

Beware of this cold, critical, carping 
spirit. Beware of the slavery of society, 
the thraldom of caste, the oppressive ty- 
ranny of custom. Think for yourselves, 
use the intellect with which God has 
blessed you, and prove yourselves the 
conquerers, not the creatures, of circum- 



SHAMS. 99 



stances. Goodness is the truest nobility. 
The man who has faith in God, love for 
humanity, and the resolve to live a Christ- 
like life, can afford to ignore all the threat- 
enings of social ostracism, and wait 
patiently till the brotherhood of men shall 
be universally acknowledged. 

One of the most discouraging features 
of life amongst young men is the preva- 
lence of sham-cynicism. A clever writer 
but short-viewed critic, who is a living 
example of this unhealthy habit, tells us 
in a recent article that "the young man 
of to-day has no religion and no enthus- 
iasm," that he is ready to "throw a 
woman on the dissecting table, " and that 
to him love is nothing but " a cruel enig- 
ma. " Can anything be more utterly 
ridiculous ? To mix with small-minded 
pessimists, listen to the unclean tittle- 
tattle of the club, and then rush into the 
awful belief that chivalry is dead, and that 
faith and earnestness no longer exist, is 



i oo FIRS T BA TTLES. 

about as sane an action as that of the man 
who dissected a dust-heap and then de- 
nounced the world as a great conglomer- 
ation of putrid ashes. Thank God the 
great mass of young men are true in heart 
and upright in life. Melancholy cynics 
and blase club-men may not believe it, 
but there are thousands of men to-day 
who prefer to feed on Kingsley and Ten- 
nyson and Longfellow rather than pink 
sporting papers and cheap works of scan- 
dal — generous and high-minded men 
who can grapple with giant temptations 
and control the reins of passion, because 
they have grasped the hand of Christ and 
asked Him to keep them pure and strong. 
Let us beware of hastily judging the 
whole race of young men by the cheap 
cynicism of a few battered roues. " Con- 
tinue for ever, " said Carlyle, " to take 
the best view of all mortals which your 
understanding will admit ; nay, it is often 
also truer than the surly one." 



SHAMS. 101 



There are other shams, of which the 
merest mention is sufficient. There is 
the sham who is a smiling philanthropist 
in the church, and a frowning tyrant in 
his business. There is the sham who 
wins a woman's pure affection by his fair 
words, and then wrecks her young life 
by his foul animalism. There is the sham 
who eloquently advocates reform on the 
platform, while his own house is devoid 
of order or comfort. There is the sham 
who says there is no God, because it will 
be easier to lie and swindle when he has 
persuaded'himself into that belief. 

The only cure for shams is at the Cross. 
No counterfeit can live at Calvary. There 
the hypocrisy is pierced, the mask falls 
off, and all is revealed. But there also 
we find forgiveness, there all the wild and 
bitter past is blotted out ; there we learn 
to love, there we begin to live. 



VIII. 
THE LOST CHRIST. 

Abide in me ! There have been moments blest, 

When I have heard Thy voice and felt Thy power; 

Theft evil lost its grasp ; and passion, hushed, 
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour. 

These zvere but seasons, beautiful and rare: 

Abide in me and they shall ever be! 
Fulfill at once Thy precept and my -prayer; 

Come, a?id abide in me, and I in Thee! 

—Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 

In the second chapter of Luke there is a 
most significant and instructive incident. 
Jesus, a boy of twelve, had gone with 
His parents to Jerusalem to attend the 
Feast of the Passover. At the close of 
the great festival, Joseph and Mary joined 
their friends and set out for home ; but 
after a day's journey they discovered, to 
their bitter consternation, that they had 
come without Jesus. A simple, unexcit- 
ing incident — but one that is pregnant 
with meaning, and one that conveys a 

(102) 



THE LOST CHRIST 103 

most helpful message to the young men 
of to-day. 

They u supposed 'Him to have been in 
the company." That was their supreme 
mistake. Christ's presence is so essential 
that it must never become a matter of 
careless supposition or momentary specu- 
lation. There is more hope of the man 
who deliberately turns his back upon 
Christ, frankly confesses his entire disbe- 
lief of the Gospel, and cuts off all connec- 
tion with the church, than of the weak, 
superficial, backboneless professor, who 
swallows his father's creed to save 
trouble, keeps what little religion he has 
as quiet and obscure as possible to avoid 
persecution, and then " supposes " it is 
all right. But " suppose " it is not all 
right, " suppose " Christ is not with you, 
" suppose " you are like a rudderless boat 
in a hurricane — impotent, feeble, demor- 
alized — without guide or light or friend ? 
This is a matter about which we must be 



1 04 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

definite and sure. Let everything else 
go, but at least aim at the certitude and 
safety which come of daily intercourse 
with Christ, who alone can secure our 
highest welfare, promote our most perfect 
happiness, and cleanse our lives from cor- 
ruption and sin. 

Be careful that you do not lose Christ, 
for His presence is the only guarantee of 
a safe and joyous life. Mr. Quintin Hogg 
tells a remarkable story of an incident 
which happened at one of our largest 
clubs. He was chatting with a friend 
about a man who had died by his own 
hand. His friend spoke rather indignant- 
ly of such an ignoble termination to life, 
and characterized it, rightly enough, as a 
cowardly thing for a man to leave others 
to meet the troubles and reap the bitter 
harvest he had sown. A well-known 
scientific man, who was sitting close by, 
turned round and said, " I think you. have 
expressed a very harsh judgment. I 



THE LOST CHRIST 105 

don't consider it the action of a coward, 
and, for myself, the only rest I can look 
forward to is the grave. " Mr. Hogg's 
friend, thinking that perhaps the gentle- 
man had lost some dear relative by sui- 
cide, qualified his remarks by saying that 
such crimes were generally committed 
under the influence of a deranged mind, 
and that his words did not, of course, ap- 
ply to a man who was irresponsible for 
his acts. " There is something worse 
than derangement, " was the reply, " and 
that is despair. " Mr. Hogg says that 
his friend was very much shocked at the 
words, and at the tone in which they were 
uttered, and began to speak to the scien- 
tist as best he could about the love of 
God. He told him that he could not 
imagine how those who accepted the 
help of God could ever despair. " Ah ! " 
was the sad reply, " I gave up my 
belief in God long ago, and I have 
had nothing but a deepening despair 



106 FIRST BA TTLES. 

ever since. I repeat that the grave is the 
only rest I can hope for — the only home 
that remains to me. " 

Was there ever a sadder story ? Here 
is a noted man of science making the 
humiliating confession that life has lost all 
its brightness, that the outlook is irre- 
deemably black, and that he is in the 
depths of perpetual despair. He ap- 
proaches the grave without God and 
without hope — with nothing but disap- 
pointment and darkness and defeat. This 
is what comes of losing Christ. We 
have no longer the power to overcome ; 
we are the sport of circumstances, and 
gradually we drift on to the cruel, grim, 
frowning rocks of helpless misery. The 
story is like a glaring signal, warning us 
of the danger that lies ahead. It bids us 
keep close to the strong, tender Christ — 
to walk in His footsteps, to try to 
live His simple, unselfish life — the life 
that may sometimes be hard and rough 



THE LOST CHRIST. 107 

and bleak, but is always full of unfailing 
hope and undimmed love, and bright with 
the undoubted promise of ultimate vic- 
tory. 

Where was it that Joseph and Mary 
missed the boy Christ? Not in the quiet 
secluded home at Nazareth. No; they 
lost Him in the city. That is the concise 
record of many a young man to-day. In 
the old country home it was easy enough 
to live the Christ-life; but when you are 
pitchforked into the huge city, with all its 
bewildering multitudes, its disenchanting 
realism, its seductive snares, and its mad- 
dening perplexities, then it is that you are 
in danger of missing the presence of the 
Master. When you leave Nazareth for 
Jerusalem, then comes the battle. From 
the plain, lonely, healthful life of the coun- 
try you plunge into the enervating, arti- 
ficial, and restless existence of the city, 
and it will be almost a miracle if in this 
complete change of environment you do 



108 FIRST BA TTLES. 

not to some extent, lose the conscious 
presence of Christ. 

But what I want to point out to you is 
this, that unfavorable circumstances are 
to be conquered. The stern discipline 
will do you good. Now you are in the 
city you will require the moral invigora- 
tion of Christ's companionship more than 
ever. The very strenuousness of city life 
will help to make your Christianity more 
practical, more manly, and, shall I say, 
more serviceable. The satisfaction of 
selfish and conventional religiousness is 
no match for the spiritual conflicts of the 
city. You will have no time to waste in 
quarrelling about doctrinal differences or 
in arranging the complicated mechanism 
of creeds. You want a strong, virile 
Christianity, which does not frown on 
the beauties of art, nor fear the researches 
of science, nor shut its eyes to the charms 
of music, nor leave the gymnasium and 
outdoor sport to be the playthings of the 



THE LOST CHRIST 109 

devil. This is the Christianity which is 
to save the city, purging its pleasures and 
ennobling its thoughts and elevating 
every detail of its life. It says to young 
men who are sinking info the aimless ex- 
istence of the worldling, or the cold, song- 
less despair of the unbeliever, " Brother, 
you do not only want a Christ who is far 
away in the dim records of ancient his- 
tory ; you want a friendly arm to guide 
you and lift you up. The real Christ is a 
wise counsellor and a loving companion. 
He will not rob you of a single pleasure. 
He will not crush your inquiring spirit or 
dethrone your intellect. He will charm 
you by His tenderness, deliver you from 
the tyranny of passion, and enable you to 
do the will of God on earth." This is the 
Evangel for the field of sport, the Gospel 
for the counting-house, the salvation for 
the city, and, thank God, thousands of 
the city young men have listened to its 
message, and have joyfully received 



1 10 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

Jesus Christ as a Friend and Brother and 
Savior. They love the Man of Naza- 
reth — the Christ of God and the Savior 
of men — with an ardent and unspeakable 
affection which inevitably constrains them 
to toil for the welfare and happiness of 
their race. They live a large, free, happy 
life, and they live it supremely for that 
great Master whose presence is its sub- 
lime inspiration, and whose " Well done ! " 
is its highest reward 

But I notice, also, that Christ was lost 
during the excitement of a feast, and 
many men to-day could testify that they 
have found His presence less real and 
their own love less warm, as the result 
of reckless indulgence or irrational pleas- 
ures. It was in a crowd, too, that Jesus 
was missed — and it is the busy whirl and 
riotous rush of modern life that endan- 
gers our unbroken communion with 
heaven. We live at a desperate pace, 
every hour is occupied by the bustle of 



THE LOST CHRIST. in 

business or the fever of amusement, and 
so in the jostling of the crowd it seems 
as if He had slipped away, and behold ! 
the light of our life has gone out, we miss 
His smile and fear to take another step 
because we have lost His protection. 
Brothers, this must not be. We must 
have our quiet hours of seclusion and re- 
pose lest the world should altogether ab- 
sorb our attention. 

But there is a cheering sequel to the 
story of the lost Christ. They found Him. 
Directly they discovered that He was 
missing, they went back to Jerusalem to 
look for the lost Christ. But here is a 
fact which we must not ignore. It did 
not take one day to lose Christ, but it 
took three days to find Him. How true 
that is ! A foul jest, an impure thought, 
an hour's dalliance with sin, and the sun- 
shine of His presence is eclipsed. And 
then comes the long and bitter repentance 
that rends the heart, the weary soul-tor- 



1 1 2 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

meriting search for the deserted Lord. 
Let us not despair, however, for Christ 
was found in the city after all. Perse- 
vere manfully, hopefully — do not give up, 
even when the search seems to be in vain. 
Christ is never very far from those who 
seek Him, and even in the city — dark 
and bitter and unwholesome as it may 
be — He is to be found by honest hearts 
and true. 

The end of the story points a useful 
moral for young men in great cities. 
They found Christ in the Temple, and 
you, my brother, will most likely find 
Him there too. Nothing is more distress- 
ing to ministers than to witness the small 
proportion of young men in our churches. 
Nothing is more spiritually suicidal than 
the way in which men neglect the house 
of prayer. One reason for this is igno- 
rance. Many young men, who in other 
respects are sane and reasonable, have a 
most baseless and unworthy prejudice 



THE LOST CHRIST. 113 

against preachers. But no manly, honest 
fellow will allow himself to be fettered by 
prejudice. Seek for Christ, therefore, 
in the Temple. In the calm, quiet sanc- 
tuary some sweet song may cheer you 5 
some noble utterance may inspire you; 
and Christ Himself may enter your heart 
and make it to throb with love — touch your 
lips and set them on fire with a message 
to the* world, and clasp your hands and 
make them busy in His service. Then 
you will know the joy of faith and the 
rapture of self-sacrifice. Then life will be 
worth living. 

And now as we finish the story of the 
lost Christ, we may well ask : Is He 
with us to-day, not only as a personal 
friend and Savior, but as a powerful in- 
fluence in the larger life of the nation ? 
Is the spirit of Christ bringing us nearer 
to the social regeneration of mankind ? 
Looking out upon the world the first im- 
pression is deeply discouraging. First of 



1 14 FIRST BA TTLES. 

all, there is a distressing overplus of 
laborers. Strong men, eager for honest 
toil, endure the agonies of hunger and ex- 
posure, and in many cases the additional 
sorrow of beholding the sufferings of their 
family. On the other hand, overwhelm- 
ing wealth is often allied with avarice and 
immorality, and while the poor starve by 
inches, the rich — to a large extent — ig- 
nore the needs of their brethren, and are 
only solicitous that Lazarus should not 
become inconveniently prominent. Thou- 
sands of young men are forced to slave 
in cramped shops and cheerless ware- 
houses for sixty and seventy hours a 
week, with never an interval for physical 
recreation or intellectual improvement. 
In attics and cellars women sew shirts or 
make cheap clothing for inhuman " sweat- 
ers " for a wage which is insufficient for 
the rent of abed — not to speak of a sepa- 
rate room — and are often compelled to 
choose between starvation and vice. In 



THE LOST CHRIST. 1 1 5 

other sections of the same cities whole 
streets are in the possession of rouged 
and painted sirens of sensuality and sin — 
every one a standing rebuke to the weak- 
ness and wickedness of man. Europe 
literally bristles with bayonets, and in- 
stead of settling trifling disputes by wise 
and fair consultation, the nations continue 
to rush into the mad devilry of carnage 
and conflagration. As for the young men, 
thousands of them are gambling them- 
selves into prison, or drinking themselves 
into early graves ; and yet every respect- 
able newspaper is occupied with long 
reports of horse-races, and a so called 
Christian Community permits a saloon 
to be planted at the corner of every 
street. Sin is made easy, vice is made 
cheap, trickery prevails in trade, bitter- 
ness in politics, and apathy in religion. 
Does not the glad message of " Peace on 
earth, goodwill to men," which the angels 
once rang out over the moonlit meadows 



1 16 FIRST BA TTLES. 

of Bethlehem, seem like a ghastly satire 
in ears accustomed to the rumors of war 
the strife of parties, and the cries of the 
oppressed ? 

Nevertheless, I maintain that Christ is 
with us, and that there is a growing rec- 
ognition of human brotherhood the world 
over. Years ago we should have been 
unmoved by the horror and iniquity of 
war. The social sores which alarm and 
distress us to-day would have been re- 
garded as normal aud irredeemable. But 
to the enlightened vision of earnest Chris- 
tians they now appear diabolical and de- 
grading, and this very fact proves that we 
are advancing. Let those who think that 
the general outlook is becoming more 
dismal, read the history of what we ironi- 
cally call the " good old times." They 
will find that at a period within the mem- 
ory of many now living, one-seventh of the 
inhabitants of Liverpool, England, lived 
in cellars, five-sixths of the inhabitants of 



THE LOST CHRIST. 117 

Rochdale had scarcely a blanket apiece, 
one person in every eleven throughout 
England was receiving relief from the 
poor rates, and three children out of four 
were receiving no schooling whatever. 
Children of six, five, or even four years 
of age, were kept at hard work in the 
mines, and hunger, disease, ignorance, 
and brutal vice were alarmingly preva- 
lent. Of course, if it is any consolation 
to unhealthy pessimists to believe that 
we are inevitably getting worse, then 
who would deny them that tender and 
refreshing thought ? But we may well 
rejoice in the fact that the general aspect 
of social life was never so bright as it is 
to-day. Poverty and impurity and in- 
temperance still exist, but the way to 
fight and annihilate these evils is not to 
sit down and sigh, but to be up and doing 
with cheerful alacrity and tireless prese- 
verance. 

Surely it is a striking indication of the 



1 1 8 FIRS T BA TTLES. 

presence of Christ and the vitality of 
Christianity when great evils are regarded 
as intolerable. If our hearts are saddened 
by the awful contrast between grim pov- 
erty and glittering wealth, we may find 
hope and courage in the fact that real, 
vigorous, common-sense Christianity is 
making unmistakable progress. The day 
of hollow shams, of rigid formalism and 
luxurious selfishness, is nearly over. 
Thank God, all Christians are not loung- 
ing in cushioned pews and comforting 
one another with the assurance that 

Doing is a deadly thing ; 
Doing ends in death. 

Some have discovered that to contem- 
plate the prospective glories of heaven is 
not nearly so useful as to bring heaven's 
glory down to earth. The genius of true 
religion is practical beneficence, and it 
cannot be deaf to the cry of human sor- 
row and need ; it must take the great 



THE LOST CHRIST. 119 

bleeding world to its heart, and tend it 
lovingly until all its wounds are healed. 

Let us be of good cheer, for Christ is 
not lost. We know He is with us, for 
we see an ever-increasing spirit of broth- 
er-hood extending throughout the world. 
We know He is with us, for there is 
springing up a self-sacrificing burden- 
bearing, truth-loving Christianity, which 
shall yet dispel the appalling gloom of 
earth's despair. Christ Himself is with 
us, and He is calling upon every young 
man to join in the bloodless battle for 
righteousness. Be silent and stagnant 
and selfish no longer. Give Him your 
unwavering trust, your unquestioning 
obedience, your undivided love, and in 
return He will give you a life that shall be 
joyous, serene, triumphant. 



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